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The death of east London's most radical bookshop

the-londoner.co.uk

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Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#161

Post by School-Cotton »

easyThrowaway wrote: post #151
rjbwork wrote: post #6

Performative radicalism that freaks out wider society instead of slow steady progress has led to the near complete irrelevance of the left in the west, especially the anglosphere. I mean, UK Labor is a centrist pro-capital party now. It's over.

The extremely effective general strike that happened in Italy of a few days ago didn't start from academia, but dock workers in Genoa. Grumpy, robust, very left-wing dock workers. The biggest issue of most "performative", as you call it, left wing movements is the lack of direct experience with everyday politics. Real-world politics are extremely messy, often in direct conflict with our ideals. Stuff like, How far yo…

AOC does not come from a working-class background. Her father was an architect and the family owned a house in Westchester.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#162

Post by easyThrowaway »

School-Cotton wrote: post #161
easyThrowaway wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extremely effective general strike that happened in Italy of a few days ago didn't start from academia, but dock workers in Genoa. Grumpy, robust, very left-wing dock workers. The biggest issue of most "performative", as you call it, left wing movements is the lack of direct experience with everyday politics. Real-world politics are extremely messy, often in direct conflict with our ideals. Stuff like, How far yo…

AOC does not come from a working-class background. Her father was an architect and the family owned a house in Westchester.

But she worked as bartender[1] - which is one of those jobs that teaches you how "Fuck Around, Find Out" works in real life, very quickly. Again, it's not matter of social or economic status, but coming to understand extremely diverse social dynamics outside of the academic field.

Both her and the dock workers were pretty effective in their causes because they have experienced first-hand how going for an half-assed or whimsical approach even in everyday politics bites you hard.

[1]Also wikipedia says that her mother was a house cleaner and school bus driver?

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#163

Post by [deleted] »

pelagicAustral wrote: post #88

I know this is a tangent, but I just want to share this oddity. I am 38 years old, and I have been trying to buy Neuromancer since 1999. I have been in Santiago, Rome, London, Miami, Madrid, Bogota, live, in situ looking for the book on mainstream bookshops and I have never found a copy to buy. I know Neuromancer by heart but I have never been able to buy a copy of it. 38 Years.

[deleted]

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#164

Post by kmeisthax »

no_time wrote: post #131
kmeisthax wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radical left-wingers subdivide into two groups: 1. Those who intuitively understand power dynamics and endeavor towards a "don't kill, and don't be killed[0]" mentality, even if they understand that the radical change they want is generational 2. People who want to wear the boot To be clear, every organization and movement has #2. Libertarian conservatives are chock full of Trump bootlickers, neoliberals were basical…

I don't understand how RMS ties into this otherwise well articulated comment.

[dead]

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#166

Post by _9ptr »

easyThrowaway wrote: post #162
School-Cotton wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AOC does not come from a working-class background. Her father was an architect and the family owned a house in Westchester.

But she worked as bartender[1] - which is one of those jobs that teaches you how "Fuck Around, Find Out" works in real life, very quickly. Again, it's not matter of social or economic status, but coming to understand extremely diverse social dynamics outside of the academic field. Both her and the dock workers were pretty effective in their causes because they have experienced first-hand how going for an half-assed o…

Bartending does not give you a "working-class background"

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#167

Post by mantas »

theossuary wrote: post #155
stogot wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “far right” has become just a schoolyard name calling label to brand anyone the left disagrees with

More like a nice way of saying fascist

Calling today’s „far“ right fascists/nazis/etc is just a disgrace to victims of the real thing.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#168

Post by mantas »

immibis wrote: post #156
mantas wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The so-called conservatives are radical centrists at best. While today’s „far-right“ would have been considered moderate conservatives not so long ago.

I have no idea what you're talking about. The current "far right" is rounding up the brown people (except the ones they agree with) and sending them to concentration camps. That would have been unthinkable a few decades ago, even on the right. And it's definitely not centrist.

As a european, US migration situation is insane. And it’s hard to cal US „right“ that tolerated such policies promoting illegal migration for decades a „right“ wing.

And european mainstream right is no longer right for the last few decades on those topics. Today’s „far“ right sound like what mainstream right would say 10-20-30 years ago depending on exact country.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#169

Post by gdbsjjdn »

Gooblebrai wrote: post #135
gdbsjjdn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is insane overhead if you want to try and run a "leftist" business. It sounds like Scarlett is a trust fund baby with more money than sense. I've been running a retail business with similar inventory costs for a couple years. I have one employee and I pay them generously. I personally chip in about 20-30k annually to keep the whole thing afloat. It's definitely possible if you keep things small. Edit to add: 10k…

Seems like you are assuming they sold the books to cover their monthly burn. But seems it was kept afloat due to donations more than due to inventory sales

My point was that this was indeed a vanity project by someone with more money than sense. At no point does it seem like they had any business plan or conception of how to make money from actually operating the business. It's just cosplaying.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#170

Post by lostlogin »

badpun wrote: post #130
lostlogin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short term it was effective. It backfired though.

It got the Bolsheviks to take over, and one of their main goals on international stage was to estabilish Communism in Germany. They didn't get to it only because they were defeated by Poland in 1920, and you can't get to Germany without conquering Poland first. So, Germans funded a party that nearly started a war with their own country. That's a hell of a gamble.

The story doesn’t end there though. After that, what the Bolsheviks created utterly destroyed Germany then occupied it for 40+ years.
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